Depending On Jesus
What’s the one thing you have that, if you lost it, it would completely and utterly devastate you? So much so that you wouldn’t give it up for anything. That usually shows us what we’re dependent on in life; what we depend on to give us significance, purpose, and love. Jesus says that we should be dependent. Followers of Jesus must be dependent. That’s why he compares us to children.
In Mark 10:13 Jesus shows shows his disciples what it looks like to be in God’s kingdom: People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me. Don’t stop them, because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” After taking them in his arms, he laid his hands on them and blessed them. Just like he’s done a couple of times before, Jesus draws their attention to children. He keeps pointing to people who are incredibly dependent and saying that we need to be like them. Children are under their parents’ rule, they’re obedient to their parents, and they trust their parents. Jesus uses that as a picture to show how we should be dependent on him. But we want our independence, right? We don’t want to be under God’s rule, obey him or trust him with our lives! We want to carve out our own path.
We are very much like the man in Mark 19:17: As [Jesus] was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? ” “Why do you call me good? ” Jesus asked him. “No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not bear false witness; do not defraud; honor your father and mother.” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these from my youth.” Now this guy really seems to want to know the answer to this question, about how he can have eternal life, right? This guy is polite, he’s moral, he’s wealthy so he’s been blessed by God. This is the best of the best here. This is the kind of guy that you’d assume God would love and want in his family. But Jesus says, “good…good teacher…why are you calling me that?” That’s interesting. It seems like this man is complementing Jesus, but Jesus pushes back. So much so that when he speaks to Jesus again in verse 20, he drops the good and just says “teacher.” What’s that about?
Let’s read on in verse 21: Looking at him, Jesus loved him and said to him, “You lack one thing: Go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But he was dismayed by this demand, and he went away grieving, because he had many possessions. This guy came to Jesus looking for eternal life, and walked away with nothing. Why? What happened? Well, Jesus was exposing that this guy was ready to call Jesus good, but he wasn’t ready to call Jesus God. Jesus told him only God is good. I’m not just a good teacher. I’m good because I’m God; recognize me for who I am! And then Jesus uses some of the 10 commandments to see if the law will convict this guy of sin, but it doesn’t. This guy doesn’t see his own brokenness. He’s a self-made man who thinks he’s done it all by himself. So Jesus goes on to the thing that the man depends on the most, his money. Give it away, and have complete dependence on me. Journey with me. And the man walks away without eternal life, he decides not to journey with Jesus, because he doesn’t want to give up his independence.
So in verse 23 Jesus says to his disciples: “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! ” But this isn’t just something that happens with money. There are many things that draw our dependence away from Jesus. Maybe for you it’s money. Or maybe it’s status, or power, control. It is hard, actually impossible, for a person to enter the kingdom of God if they aren’t dependent on Jesus for it.
This whole passage teaches us this: disciples of Jesus are dependent on Jesus. If you’re going to journey with Jesus, it means you’re going to depend on Jesus for everything. The Pharisees weren’t depending on Jesus at all for how to live their lives, they’re actually just dependent on themselves, their own view of the world, their system that they’ve created. The rich man wasn’t dependent on Jesus, he was dependent on his resources and abilities. They were all chasing independence from God, even though it looked like they were being dependent on God.
So, what are some ways that we express our dependence on Jesus in all of life?
PRAY
When Jesus taught his followers to pray, he told them to talk to God like this in Matthew 6: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do no bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Do you hear the dependence in that prayer? They’re praying and honoring God’s name, not their own, asking for his kingdom to come, his will to be done. Confessing that their daily food comes from him, forgiveness comes from him, and protection form evil comes from him. This is an outrageously dependent prayer. You can know how dependent on God you are by how often you pray, and what you pray for.
GIVE
We confess our dependence on God when we give freely of our time, energy, and resources to God and to bless others. We confess that we believe that Philippians 4 is true: And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. I totally understand that we each need time in each day to get everything done, so we’re tempted to use all your time for ourselves and not give any of it to God. But God said he’ll supply what you need. We need energy, we need money, and so we’re tempted to hoard those things and not give them away freely. The problem is that when we hoard those things, we’re not living in dependence on God, but dependence on ourselves. We’re confessing that we can manage our time well enough, distribute our energy wisely enough, accumulate enough money to get through life. But when when give those things away, we’re confessing that we trust in God to supply all that we need. Do you trust that? Are you dependent on God for your time, energy, and money? Then how are you giving those things away?
REST
Look at what Jesus says in Matthew 11: Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. That’s so counter to the way I think. I think if I’m weary that I need to find rest for myself. I need to get to sleep as soon as possible or clear my schedule for a beach day so that I’ll feel rested. If I’m burdened, I need to work more, work harder, in order to not feel burdened anymore. But Jesus says that what I need is to come to him. I need to rest in him, and he, Jesus himself, will give me the rest that I need. Are you resting in Jesus? Are you taking time, scheduling time, so just rest with him? Are you resting by coming to church? Here are Harbor we have community groups and journey groups, times during the week that we rest together in who Jesus is and what He’s done. Are you prioritizing those, or if something comes up at work or with family or you’re just feeling tired, is it easy to cut those? We confess our dependence on God by how we rest in him.
My prayer for our church is that we are a family of dependent disciples, trusting Jesus with our entire lives, not just the parts that are easy. That’s the best situation we could be in.